Your Chicago Curated Weekend: 2/15 and Beyond
It’s a post-Valentine’s Day weekend and whether you’re keeping the love going or are happy to be done with the holiday, there’s a full and fun weekend ahead! There are […]
Review: Bottled Spiders and Blood Splatter in Chicago Shakespeare’s Richard III
Now is the unseasonably warm winter of our discontent, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s new artistic director Edward Hall helms his first production on Navy Pier. Tony Award-nominated track and field […]
Review: Compañía Nacional de Danza Starts Tepid, Ends With Dazzle at the Auditorium Theatre
Spain has a complicated history with dance. Like most European countries, Spain’s cultural leaders would rather have a reputation for the finer arts like ballet but came to accept flamenco, […]
Review: “A Repugnant Purity”: Al Capone, by Pierre-Francois Radice and Swann Meralli
Chicago is best known for its transplants. Our biggest celebrities come to a pocketful of names—most from elsewhere, but now synonymous with the Windy City. Much like Oprah, Michael, Ditka, […]
Preview: lake j Announces Debut Solo Album Dizzy with “My Own Mess”
It’s always a nice treat when a member of a fantastic band releases a solo project. You honestly never know what you’re going to get. Maybe it’s a continuation of […]
Review: Otherworld Theatre’s Twihard! A Twilight Musical Parody Is a Comic Treat for Diehard Fans and Others
A zany and eclectic soundtrack by Tiffany Keane Schaefer and Brian Rasmussen meets a zany and eclectic cast in this hilarious generation-specific parody. The three background musicians (Brian Rasmussen, Mark […]
Review: At Timeline Theater, Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes From the Field Walks in the Words of Racial Reality
Sometimes the topic of a play is so big and important, a brief description falls short. Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field, now onstage at TimeLine Theatre, lands squarely in […]
Review: Harmless Workplace RomCom Upgraded Isn’t Exactly First Class Fare
Certainly better than I was expected from what is essentially a rom-com with slightly more emphasis than normal on the profession of the female lead, Upgraded tells the tale of […]
Review: Jay Duplass Stars in Ghostwritten, a Murky Literary Mystery on an Isolated Island
In this moderately effective take on the question of where inspiration truly comes from in the arts, Ghostwritten comes from writer-director Thomas Matthews (Lost Holiday) and follows the travails of […]
Review: Semi-Autobiographical Suncoast Offers an Uneven if Well-Intentioned Coming-of-Age Story
In this strange, semi-autobiographical story from debut writer-director Laura Chinn, Suncoast tells the story of teenager Doris (Nico Parker), growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her mother Kristine (Laura […]
Review: How to Have Sex Is a Sharp and Emotional Examination of Young Womanhood and Sexuality
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes 2023 and the debut feature from writer-director Molly Manning Walker, How To Have Sex is a fully immersive party girl experience […]
Review: Lisa Frankenstein Aims to Reimagine the Feminist Thriller, But Fails to Spark Any Life
The biggest problem with the latest film from writer Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body, Juno, Young Adult) isn’t that it doesn’t have many original ideas. It’s meant to be something of […]